


Sing to Me a Deeper Song

by enigmaticblue



Series: A Friend Is Your Needs Answered [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Post-Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2338673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he wakes, it’s with no knowledge of his past, and no idea of what the future might hold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing to Me a Deeper Song

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the trope_bingo prompt "amnesia." I'm choosing not to warn mostly because there's the implication of major character death, but no confirmation. But then, if you've seen Not Fade Away, you'll know what I mean.

_“If in the twilight of memory, we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.”_ ~Khalil Gibran

 

He wakes to silence, a deep, echoing silence that feels unnatural, although he couldn’t say why. He doesn’t know where he is, or how he came to be here.

 

The room is lit by fading natural light; the walls are painted a pale green with a few generic paintings on the wall. He’s on a bed with starched white sheets and a lightweight green blanket, and when he turns his head, he sees medical equipment.

 

He sits up slowly, his hand going to his side, which aches. He can feel the pull of stitches, and he pulls out the IV needle in his hand on instinct; the empty bag hanging on the pole is evidence of neglect.

 

He’s not sure _why_ he recognizes the feeling of stitches pulling, or the knowledge that the empty IV bag is a sign of something not being right. He can’t remember his own name, but he knows that he shouldn’t be alone, that someone should have replaced the bag of saline, that someone should have appeared when he woke up.

 

It’s a visceral feeling, but he ignores it and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He nearly collapses when he first tries to stand, but he clings to the bed, waiting for his strength to return.

 

The odors of urine and feces hit his nose, and he realizes that he’s been lying in his own filth for who knows how long.

 

When he’s on his feet again, he looks around for things he might be able to use, clothing he could change into. There’s nothing, though, and he debates whether he should get clean first, or find clothes.

 

The idea of being able to change into clean clothes wins out, and he stumbles to the door, slowly finding his balance. The wound in his side aches with every step, and he wishes he knew what had caused it, or what had brought him here.

 

Or _who_ had brought him here, as well as where they are now, and why he’d been left behind.

 

He uses the wall to balance as he makes his way down the corridor outside his room. The halls are deserted, and he has no idea if that’s normal or not.

 

It doesn’t seem normal. Even though he has no real memories to back up his suspicions, he thinks he’s in a hospital, and he knows it shouldn’t be empty.

 

He moves as quickly as he can, doing a rough search of the floor he’s on and finding nothing that will help him. He goes down to the main floor and finds a locker room with showers. There are empty lockers, and those with locks on, but he finds a couple that have clothing that will mostly fit. The jeans are a little short, and the t-shirt is a little too big, but they’re clean. Or at least, they don’t stink, and therefore are better than the soiled hospital gown Wesley is wearing.

 

He showers quickly, using the soap and shampoo he found in another locker. Shoes are another matter entirely, and he runs a hand through his damp hair, considering his options.

 

Glancing in the mirror, he stops, seeing a stranger’s face. He touches the scar marring his throat, presses a hand against his side where he’d seen the mark of a bullet wound. The fresh stab wound appears to be healing well, and he thinks he’ll be able to take the stitches out soon.

 

What kind of life had he lived up until now? What kind of person is he to have had his throat slashed, to have been shot, to have been stabbed? What kind of person wakes alone in an empty hospital?

 

He shakes his head. Now isn’t the time for philosophical questions. He has to focus on his current problem.

 

Well, problems, multiple. He needs to figure out where he is, and maybe who he is, and where he can find help.

 

If he’d come in with personal effects, he needs to locate them. There has to be a storage location somewhere with his things. His clothes might not have survived, but maybe his shoes and wallet would have, and finding them is a priority.

 

He goes back up to the floor where he’d woken up, thinking that’s the most likely place where they would keep anything belonging to him. He finds a locked cabinet behind the nurse’s station, and without even thinking about it, he grabs a couple of paperclips and manages to unlock it.

 

Maybe he’s a criminal, and that’s why he bears the scars he does, and apparently knows how to pick a lock.

 

He finds a number of things in the cabinet, including three wallets, two purses, a paper sack, and a few other odds and ends, like jewelry in small plastic bags.

 

His wallet is the third one he flips open, his picture staring back at him. “Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Well, that’s quite the mouthful,” he murmurs out loud, the sound of his own voice strange to his ears.

 

He finds a couple of credit cards and a business card for Angel Investigations, a private investigation firm. Curious, Wesley pulls out his driver’s license and finds a PI license behind it. There’s an expiration date on the license, but since he has no idea what today’s date is, he has no idea whether it’s expired.

 

“So, maybe not a criminal,” Wesley murmurs. That makes him feel a little better about his scars and his skill set.

 

There isn’t much cash in his wallet, and he hesitates briefly before going through the other wallets and the purses, taking whatever money he finds. He feels a pang of guilt, but quickly squashes it. He doubts the owners of the items expect to get them back, even if they are still alive.

 

Maybe he’ll be able to repay them someday. He grabs a piece of paper and writes down the names and the amount he took from each of them, and tucks it into his wallet.

 

The paper sack holds a pair of boots and a leather jacket, both of which fit him well, so he has to assume they belong to him, probably the only things that were salvageable after they cut his clothing off.

 

Wesley frowns. How would he know that? It’s not a memory—he can’t recall being in the hospital before, but he must have been, for both the slash across his throat and the bullet wound in his side.

 

He shakes his head. _How_ he knows isn’t important. He now has clothing, boots, and a jacket, as well as identification and cash. He has his address and that of his place of business, and that gives him a place to start.

 

Wesley picks up the phone, just as an experiment, and doesn’t hear a dial tone. That squares with the emergency lights, which are probably running off a backup generator. That probably explains why he still had hot water, since the hospital would need it.

 

He heads for the front door of the hospital and has to force the doors open, as they won’t slide open automatically.

 

Wesley doesn’t know how to process what he sees immediately upon leaving the hospital. The sun had set while he’d been getting cleaned up, but now the sky is dark with an unnatural bluish light that illuminates the heavy cloud cover. Wesley knows it’s unnatural, and his immediate reaction is to retreat inside, find food, and barricade the doors until the strangeness passes.

 

But is that the kind of man he wants to be? Someone who runs away from trouble? Whoever he had been in the past, he has a choice about who he will be now.

 

And he doesn’t want to be the sort of man who hides from his problems. Right now, his problem is a hostile landscape and finding a way to get to his apartment or his place of employment.

 

It would probably help if he knew where he was in relation to his apartment and the address on his business card, but he’s not sure where to find a map.

 

He doesn’t want to go back outside if he isn’t sure about where he’s going, and then he remembers the computer at the nurse’s station. He might be able to figure it out that way.

 

Wesley heads back to the nurse’s station and locates the address of the hospital on the letterhead he finds at the desk. The computer is powered down, and when he tries to boot it up, he finds that it’s protected by a password, which he has no hope of cracking.

 

“Damn,” he mutters. “No hope for it then. Once more into the breach.”

 

He heads out of the hospital at that point, closes his eyes, and follows his instincts. Perhaps some part of him remembers where he’s going, even if his conscious mind does not. He’s not sure that he’s getting any closer to his destination as he walks, but he realizes that he’s following the wake of devastation, from less bad to worse, marked by downed poles, broken windows, opened fire hydrants, and burned out cars.

 

He feels uncertain, but he lets his feet take him where they will and wishes he had a weapon, although he has no idea if he knows how to use one.

 

Then again, he’d apparently been a private detective, so surely he knows how to handle a gun. The problem is that he doesn’t have a weapon, and he has no way to protect himself, so he keeps to the shadows as much as possible.

 

He tries to let instinct be his guide as much as possible since he doesn’t have anything else to go on. The streets seem curiously deserted, but Wesley keeps seeing things out of the corner of his eye, and he’s fairly certain that they’re not human.

 

Wesley probably travels about ten blocks when he sees the street name for the address on his business card, and he pauses as he decides which way to go.

 

He closes his eyes briefly, and then tells himself it doesn’t matter if he chooses the wrong direction, he can just turn around and head the other way—even though he doesn’t know how far he should go before giving up.

 

He selects a direction at random and begins to walk, still hugging the buildings that he passes, while keeping a sharp eye out. Wesley spots a length of pipe in an alley, and he detours to grab it, feeling a little better with it in his hand.

 

Wesley keeps track of the street numbers as he walks, and realizes that he’s getting close. He’s a little surprised that the address is an old hotel, but he walks right up to the front doors and enters without any trouble.

 

There’s some kind of symbol painted onto the floor in red that Wesley can just make out in the dim light. There’s a round couch in the middle of the lobby, and an old fashioned desk where people probably checked in back when it was open for business.

 

Wesley goes into the manager’s office and finds shelves overflowing with books, most of them not in English. He grabs one at random and flips it open. The symbols look like gibberish at first, but then coalesce into words he can read. He has no idea why he remembers how to read some sort of strange language that doesn’t even resemble English.

 

Hell, he has no idea how he can even read anything when he can’t remember anything about his life, and only knows his name because he’d been lucky enough to find his driver’s license.

 

Wesley puts the book back where he found it, and then starts a systematic search of the hotel. The kitchen has a few stray cans of food, but most of them are past their expiration date, as are the condiments in the fridge. No one has lived here in some time. Judging by the dust on everything, no one’s used the hotel as a place of business in a long time either.

 

He starts going through the desk in the office, looking for anything that might give him a person to contact. He finds an address book with a list of contacts, but when he picks up the phone there’s no dial tone. Wesley doesn’t have a mobile phone or any other way of calling out, nor does he have transportation to get out of the city.

 

If he can get out of the city. He’s not sure that’s possible.

 

He hears a noise from the front of the hotel, and he picks up the pipe he’d brought in from the alley. Crouching behind the desk, he stays quiet and still, clutching the pipe closely.

 

There are female voices, and Wesley stays where he is, uncertain as to who might be in the hotel right now. “There are footprints in the dust,” someone says. “And they’re recent.”

 

Wesley knows that he probably doesn’t have very long before someone discovers him, but he has no idea whether it’s friend or foe.

 

After a moment’s hesitation, he gets up, hiding the pipe behind his back. When he steps out of the office, he sees half a dozen young women, all of them in their late teens or early twenties, and a dark-haired woman in the lead.

 

She takes one look at him and says, “Wesley? You’re alive?”

 

“Apparently,” Wesley responds dryly. “Although, to be quite honest, I have no idea who you are.”

 

The woman blinks. “What do you remember?”

 

“I woke up in an abandoned hospital,” he replies. “I found my wallet and a few other personal effects, and I managed to make my way back here, although I think that was mostly instinct. Who are you?”

 

“You really don’t remember anything?” she presses.

 

Wesley is beginning to get frustrated. “No, I don’t. I found the address for this place on a business card in my wallet. Now, who are you? And how do you know me?”

 

“I’m Faith,” she offers. “And we go way back. You could say we worked together.”

 

“Were you also a private investigator?” he asks.

 

Faith snorts. “More like a freelancer. I’m a Slayer, and you used to be a Watcher. I was kind of hoping that you’d be able to tell us what happened so we could finish cleaning up this mess.”

 

“I have no idea,” Wesley replies. “Nor do I know what a Slayer is, or what I’d be watching.”

 

Faith grimaces. “Right. We’re Slayers. Generally speaking, we kill vampires and other demons. And a big portal to a demon dimension got opened a week and a half ago. Lots of nasty things came out. It’s why they’ve evacuated this area of L.A.”

 

There are a lot of things in that statement that shouldn’t make sense, like the existence of vampires, but Wesley has no trouble believing her. After all, he _had_ woken up in an empty hospital, and there are signs of devastation outside. Faith clearly knows him, and her story is so far-fetched that he can’t help but believe her.

 

Still, without his memories, he doesn’t think he’ll be much use. “I’m not sure I can help you,” he admits.

 

 “Can you still read those thick books you liked so much?” Faith asks.

 

Wesley shrugs. “It appears that I can.”

 

“Then maybe some of the other stuff will come back to you,” she suggests. “They say muscle memory is a powerful thing, and you used to be pretty damn good with a gun.”

 

Faith turns to the other girls and starts calling out orders, tasking some with making a supply run, and others with ensuring the hotel is secure, and finding places to sleep.

 

“It’s okay if we stay here, right?” Faith asks offhandedly when she’s finished dispersing the girls.

 

Wesley shrugs. “I really don’t care. It’s not my hotel.”

 

“Kind of is,” Faith replies. “At least in Angel’s absence, and we’re not sure he’s even alive, so you’re in charge.”

 

Wesley thinks about that, and then hitches a shoulder. “Do what you like, and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

 

Faith gives him a sharp look. “Are you hungry? How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

 

Wesley shrugs. “I don’t remember.”

 

“Carrie!” Faith calls. “See what you can do for immediate food sources. Wes needs to eat.”

 

Wesley frowns. “You don’t have to do that. I’m really okay.”

 

“Yeah, until you collapse,” Faith replies. “Besides, we had a long trip. We’re all hungry.”

 

“Can I do anything to help?” Wesley asks.

 

Faith gives him a long look, as though trying to judge his fitness. “You can help us search the hotel. Look for anything that might be useful—weapons, books, food. We’ll be setting up here for the duration, since it’s defensible. But try to take it easy. Min, shadow Wesley.”

 

The girl that peels off from the group looks about seventeen, and appears to be at least partly of Asian descent. “I’m Min, as you probably guessed. Where would you suggest we start?”

 

Wesley thinks about the question for a moment. “The basement? I haven’t been down there yet.”

 

Min nods. “Let’s go then.”

 

Wesley realizes that he had no way of knowing that the hotel had a basement until he starts heading towards the door, as though he though he already knows where it is.

 

Maybe there’s some small part of him that remembers this place.

 

They start down the stairs, moving slowly by necessity, since Wesley’s side is hurting. Wesley spots the blood on the wall of the stairwell. “Someone has been here.”

 

Min touches the wall next to one of the bloody handprints. “Apparently. Do you have a weapon?”

 

Wesley hasn’t dropped the pipe, and he holds it up. “Yes, such as it is.”

 

“Should do some good if it’s necessary,” Min replies cheerfully.  “I’ve got your back.”

 

The basement is kitted out as a training room, complete with a punching bag, training mats, and weapons on the wall. There’s a cage, human-sized, on one side of the room, but Wesley is more interested in the blood trail, which clearly leads to one corner of the room.

 

Wesley motions, and Min pulls out a wooden stake. They find a man in the corner, wrapped in a black leather duster, with a shock of bleached blond hair. He rouses as they approach, holding up one hand as the other clutches his side.

 

“Wes, you made it,” the man says. “I thought Vail killed you.”

 

“Vampire,” Min hisses.

 

“Okay, _yeah_ , but not evil,” the man says. “Wesley, you tell her.”

 

Wesley winces. “I would, but I don’t actually remember anything. Sorry.”

 

“Oh, for…” He trails off, and then suddenly brightens. “Are the senior Slayers here? Buffy or Faith?”

 

“Faith is here,” Wesley replies cautiously.

 

“She’ll vouch for me,” he replies with complete confidence. He lifts his arm to show a large wound in his side and a blood soaked shirt. “I’m not really capable of hurting anyone right now, even if I wanted to.”

 

Min glances at Wesley, as though for permission, and he has no idea why she thinks he knows anything. “He’s not armed, and we are,” Wesley says. “Plus, he knows me. I’ve been reliably informed that most of those people are dead.”

 

“Not dead,” the man—or vampire—says. “At least, I don’t know if they’re dead or missing.”

 

“We should take him upstairs,” Wesley says. If nothing else, the vampire might have some answers as to what happened.

 

“I’m sorry I don’t know your name,” Wesley says, offering him a hand up, feeling the stitches in his side pull. He stifles a grunt of pain.

 

“It’s Spike,” he replies, listing a bit. “Faith will know who I am.”

 

“Come upstairs, and we’ll see what Faith has to say,” Min replies guardedly.

 

Wesley follows Spike up the stairs, both of them moving slowly. Wesley would have offered his help, but he’s starting to feel the effects of his injury and the lack of food.

 

The question of whether Faith will vouch for Spike is answered immediately, because she’s in the lobby when they emerge from the basement. “Spike? I thought you were dead.”

 

“I am,” Spike replies with a smirk as he plops down on the couch. “But not like how you mean.”

 

Wesley grabs the first aid kit he’d seen behind the desk in the lobby.

 

“And you couldn’t have let us know?” Faith demands.

 

“Andrew knew,” Spike replies, sounding defensive. “I figured he would have told everyone.”

 

Faith puts her hands on her hips. “Well, he didn’t!”

 

“That’s not my fault!” Spike says.

 

“But you not picking up the phone and calling us is,” she snaps.

 

Wesley clears his throat. “Is this really necessary right now?”

 

“No, it’s not,” Faith admits. “I’m glad you’re still in one piece, Blondie.”

 

“In a manner of speaking,” Spike replies, lifting up his shirt.

 

Wesley moves on instinct to clean up the wound in Spike’s side and patch him up. Even though he can’t remember ever doing this for someone before, his hands know what to do. He wonders how many times he’s done this in the past.

 

“Thanks, mate,” Spike says as Wesley finishes up.

 

“You know what happened to me,” Wesley says.

 

Spike nods. “Sure. We were taking out members of the Black Thorn, and you got stabbed. Illyria must have taken you to a hospital.”

 

“How long have you been in the basement?” Faith asks.

 

Spike hesitates. “Don’t know. I’ve been hunting the nasties that came through the portal every night, but one of them took a chunk out of me. I lost some time after that.”

 

“Near as we can tell, it’s been about ten days since the portal opened,” Faith says. “The news called it a chemical spill and kept it pretty quiet, so it took us some time to figure out that it was a Slayer problem.”

 

Wesley frowns. “The area was evacuated?”

 

“You might have been overlooked in the panic, since things got pretty bad a couple of days ago,” Faith says. “If they had to evacuate an entire hospital, they might not have been able to get everybody out. Maybe they had to make a choice.”

 

Wesley shrugs. “I don’t suppose it matters. I survived.”

 

“And you don’t remember anything?” Spike asks.

 

Wesley shakes his head. “Nothing.”

 

“Might be for the best,” Spike says softly. “The last few years haven’t been great for you.”

 

“What about Angel?” Faith asks. “Where is he?”

 

Spike shakes his head. “I don’t know. I lost him in the initial battle, and he hasn’t turned up.”

 

Faith closes her eyes briefly. “Maybe he’s holed up somewhere. Do you think he’d come back here?”

 

“If he’s alive, yeah,” Spike replies.

 

Wesley looks between them. “Angel?”

 

“Your old boss,” Faith replies. “And a good friend.”

 

Wesley winces. “I’m sorry.” He feels awkward, like he should know these things, and these people, and yet it’s all a blank.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Faith replies. “Feel free to ask whatever.”

 

Carrie returns then with another girl, each of them with several plastic sacks. “We got food!”

 

It’s mostly canned goods and packaged food, but Wesley’s so hungry that he could eat just about anything right now.

 

“You’re going to need blood,” Faith says, looking at Spike.

 

Spike hitches a shoulder. “Good luck. I’ve been making do with short rations.”

 

“There’s a hospital close by,” Wesley points out. “Or close enough. They may have evacuated most of the patients, but I doubt they took the blood supplies.”

 

“Human blood will help me heal faster,” Spike agrees.

 

Faith nods. “I’ll send a couple of girls to the hospital. We’ll probably need additional medical supplies anyway.”

 

“How long are we going to be here?” Wesley asks.

 

Faith shrugs. “As long as it takes. We may have to call in additional people if we can’t get things taken care of soon.”

 

Wesley wishes he had some idea of how to help, but he doesn’t have any clue what to do next. “What can I do?”

 

Faith gives him a look. “No offense, Wes, but you were stabbed, and you might not realize it, but you look like shit. You and Spike can sit tight and heal while we deal with this.”

 

“She’s right,” Spike says ruefully. “And it’s best not to argue with a Slayer when she’s right.”

 

Wesley sits down on the couch next to Spike and suddenly realizes how tired he is. “I—”

 

“Come on,” Faith says. “Let’s get you horizontal. There’s a couch in the office you can crash on. I don’t think you’re up for stairs right now.”

 

She gives him a hand up and supports him into the office, and helps him stretch out on the couch. “Sleep,” she advises. “You need to rest.”

 

“I feel like there’s something I should be doing,” Wesley objects.

 

“Recovering,” Faith says. “That’s what you should be doing. You patched me up a couple of times. Let me do the same for you.”

 

“I was unconscious for over a week,” Wesley mutters. “I shouldn’t be this tired.”

 

Faith smiles. “You were stabbed in the gut. I was in a coma for months after I got knifed, so you’re already one up on me.”

 

Wesley can’t keep his eyes open. “Promise I won’t wake up alone.”

 

“Swear,” Faith replies, but Wesley barely hears her.

 

When Wesley wakes up, Spike is sitting in the chair behind the desk with his feet propped up, and he says, “The sleeper awakes.”

 

Wesley pushes himself into a sitting position with some difficulty. He’s still tired and sore, and he realizes that he’d been running on adrenalin the day—is it just a day?—before. Right now, he has none of that juice.

 

“Hits you harder when you don’t have the adrenalin running through you, huh?” Spike asks, as though reading Wesley’s mind. “Not that I have adrenalin anymore, but I can extrapolate.”

 

Wesley leans back against the couch. “It would seem that way.”

 

“Buck up,” Spike advises. “You’re alive, and a lot of other people aren’t.”

 

“I’m not sure that makes me feel any better,” Wesley admits. “I know I should be mourning losses, but I don’t know _what_ I’ve lost.”

 

“It might be better this way, mate,” Spike says sympathetically. “The last few years haven’t been the greatest.”

 

Wesley snorts. “Clearly.” He hesitates. “But there had to have been some good things, and they were my friends. I feel like I should remember them. Remember _you_.”

 

“We weren’t really friends,” Spike replies. “If that makes you feel any better.”

 

“Curiously enough, it doesn’t.”

 

Spike smiles briefly. “Look, the last few months have been hell. Maybe you remember them at some point, and maybe you don’t, but take the respite.”

 

“Doesn’t seem like much of a respite,” Wesley admits. “What about you? Why are you still here?”

 

Spike shrugs. “Fell in love with a girl, and I tried to be a hero for her. Guess I got the bug.”

 

“The bug?”

 

“Being a hero,” Spike replies. “It gets in your blood.”

 

Wesley lifts an eyebrow. “Does it?”

 

“Seems to,” Spike says. “You okay?”

 

“I am a man without any memories of his past, but who still bears the scars,” Wesley replies. “I am no one.”

 

Spike shakes his head. “No, you’re a man who got a second chance and a clean slate. You don’t have to stay here, you could go anywhere you like, be anyone you like. Are you going to take off?”

 

The idea of leaving Los Angeles bothers him, maybe more than it should. “No, I’m not.”

 

“Then you’re still the man I knew,” Spike says quietly. “Who would never back down from a problem, no matter the personal cost.”

 

Wesley nods, and thinks that’s exactly the kind of man he’d like to be. Maybe the reality is that he has a choice now. He could run away, or he could stay and help in any way possible.

 

He meets Spike’s steady gaze and says, “I don’t know how much success I’ll have, but I think I’d like to be the man you remember.”

 

Spike lifts an eyebrow. “Seems like you’re doing just fine already.”


End file.
